Nightmares
by ATMcLean
Summary: After a nightmare you don't always want to talk . . .


Harry Potter and all related characters are the property of JK Rowling.  I'm just borrowing Hermione and Ginny for a bit, that's all.

Please don't archive or otherwise distribute this story without my permission.

Nightmares is set just before the start of Order of the Phoenix.

There have been a lot of wonderful stories featuring Harry and Ginny's nightmares, but they might not be the only ones traumatised by their time at Hogwarts.

My thanks to the Anonymous Beta, she knows who she is.

**_Nightmares._****__**

by

Alasdair T. McLean

I wake up screaming with my heart hammering in my chest and sweat plastering my nightdress to me.  The room I share with Ginny Weasley at 12 Grimmauld Place is comfortably warm, but I can't stop shivering.  Sitting up in bed, I push my hair out of my eyes with a hand that shakes.

My heart and breathing begin to slow and I look across at the bed opposite mine, grateful that I haven't woken . . .

"Hermione?"  The lamp at her bedside comes on and Ginny looks across at me, her eyes shadowed with tiredness and concern.  "Nightmare?"

"Yes.  It wasn't a bad one. Go back to sleep.  I'm fine.  Really." 

We both know that I'm lying, but she lets it go.

"Do you want the light left on?"  I shake my head, and she slumps back into her bed with her eyes slightly narrowed for a moment before she accepts that I really don't want to talk about it. 

This time. 

Between the two of us, if we talked things through every time one of us had a nightmare we'd never get any sleep.  And besides, there are times when you just want to stare into the darkness and let it all wash over you.

She turns the lamp off and I do just that.

I've been having nightmares since the end of first year.  They got worse after second, and now?

Now I really miss the old ones I had before I came to Hogwarts about academic failure and standing in front of my class naked and unprepared. 

Right now, one of those would seem almost comforting.

Oh, my nightmares still revolve around the concept of not being prepared, of failing, but now I watch my friends dying because of my mistakes, because of things I miss or don't know, because of me.

In my nightmares Ron wasn't just knocked out by the White Queen.  And there was nothing I could do to help him.  Then I got the potions wrong and I had to watch as Harry died, poisoned, leaving me all alone to fail against Quirrell and Voldemort. 

In my nightmares I don't realise that it's a basilisk that has been released from the Chamber, and so I don't have a mirror to protect Penny and I from its gaze, and we die.  Harry and Ron don't realise what they face when they go after Ginny, and she . . . and _Tom_, he . . .

I look over at her, asleep now, and I can't believe how self-indulgent I'm being.  I mean, honestly, she was _possessed_ by Voldemort.  What right do I have to feel sorry for myself when she . . ?  I've heard her screaming out in horror at what the diary, at what Tom made her do.  In her nightmares she begs her victims for forgiveness.  She begs and fights Tom for their lives and her own.

And, Harry, he had nightmares before, but after last year and the Third Task and what happened to Cedric . . .  I shudder to think what they'll be like now.

I can't believe I'm feeling sorry for myself for a few bad dreams.  Compared to Harry and Ginny's nightmares, that's really all they are.

I feel as if I'm being weak for letting them get to me like this.

The rational part of me knows that I have these nightmares because I'm so very afraid of failing my friends.  Unfortunately that doesn't stop them, or the pain they cause.

I just can't stand the thought of Harry, or Ron, or _anyone_, being hurt because I get something wrong, because I don't know something.

Because I fail.

I can't fail them.  I won't.

My head falls into my hands, I need to sleep.  I won't make myself sick over this.  I won't make myself sick because of things that haven't happened.  There's only so much I can do, and after third year, I've learned my lesson about trying to push and do too much.  That was the real reason I took all those classes back then.  Ron thought it was just because I'm a swot and an insufferable know-it-all, (which I am, I can admit that much to myself, at least), but that wasn't it, not really.  That's still why I'm so driven in my classes.  So I can help them.  I can protect them.

Dammit, I'm a fifteen year old girl!  I shouldn't be worrying about all this! I shouldn't have to think about any of this!  The worst thing I should have to worry about is my exams and whether Ron . . .

I'm not going to think about that.  Not now.  It's not important.  Not compared to everything else that's going on.

Still, I wonder if he has nightmares too?

I'm not going to talk to him about mine though, or to Harry.  They'd just worry about me, and they have more than enough to worry about.

But, still . . . They need me to be strong for them.  They need to think that I have the answers.

And I need to help.

I know I can't keep everything inside, so sometimes I talk to Ginny about it all. 

And I try to get Harry to talk to me.

He'll be here soon, away from his family, and with us.

I hope he's okay.

I don't think there's any chance of it really, but I hope that we can have a nice quiet year at school this time.

I sigh and lean back into my bed to stare at the ceiling and wait for sleep.

I hope I don't dream.

The End.


End file.
